Appealing to customers’ charitable sides

Brighter Planet, a Middlebury, Vt., company that sells emissions reduction credits to individuals and organizations looking to offset their carbon footprints, hopes encouraging customers to shop will help it raise cash — and save the planet.

Through a partnership with Bank of America, Brighter Planet offers its members Visa-branded credit and debit cards. The company receives 2.1% of every dollar cardholders spend using their affinity cards. Since 2006, the company has raised roughly $350,000. While much of those funds have gone toward investments in alternative-energy projects and carbon-offset purchases, the company also uses a portion of the proceeds to support the business, says Patti Prairie, the company’s CEO. (The company outlines how it spends revenues generated from the cards in the cardmember agreement.) “Instead of getting miles, we’re helping people invest in clean energy,” she says.

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